The free man and the soldier

Preface

The sort of truth that is in most danger of getting itself ignored is the whole truth. It is usually too monotonously obvious to attract attention, too insipid to lend a relish to conversation, and too dull to point a paragraph. Half-truths hold the stage, and divide the allegiance of mankind among them. Thus, instead of agreeing that we are somewhere in the middle of progress, with something done and something yet to do, opinion is divided between the old and the young, between those who believe that the world is rapidly approaching its end and those who believe that it has just begun. Optimist and pessimist, anarchist and reactionary, atheist and bigot, feminist and misogynist, these are some of the character-parts which the human mind admires and loves to assume. The present crisis in human affairs has given a fearful urgency to two great human problems. First, how shall one be secure and yet peaceful? Second, how shall we act in concert and yet remain free inviii PREFACE

dividuals? In each case the solution of the problem requires the reconciliation of two indispensable values. And yet men divide themselves into parties and become blind to one of these values through excess of zeal for the other. Thus militarists for security's sake abandon the ideal of peace, and pacifists for the sake of peace shut their eyes to violence and danger. Or individualists in the name pf freedom protest against organization and authority; while nationalists from love of country forget that no cotmtry is worthy of being loved that is not the home of independent and happy individuals. Thus the solid truth escapes notice, from too much looking at one or another of its flat surfaces. Even if the truth be hard to win, it is worth something to see it on both sides and to comprehend its dimensions. Whatever be sound policy in the present crisis it must provide a way by which liberty and peace shall be consistent with solidarity and strength; by which a man may take his place as a soldier in the ranks, and yet remain free.

Essays I, II, IV, and V have appeared in part in The New Republic ; VI and XI in The Atlantic Monthly; VII in The International Journal of

PREFACE ix

Ethics ; VIII in The New York Times ; X in The Forum ; and XII in Harper^ s Weekly. My thanks are due to the editors of these periodicals for permission to reprint.

Ralph Barton Perry.

Cambridge, Mass.^ June 15, 1916.

Contents

PAGB

Preface vii

II. The Vigil of Arms 15

II

IT was thought appropriate that a man should pass the eve of his knighthood "bestowing himself in orisons and prayers." A knight should be a good knight, "a noble and gentle knight" — one dedicated to service and jealous of honor. Power is admirable only when restrained. Physical strength in a man is justified only by the weakness which it succors, by the incorporeal things to which it gives a body. Unless their use is redeemed by necessity or by some humane cause, arms are merely cruel and mischievous. The sentiments and symbols associated with war are ways of recognizing its inherent hatefulness. They are the means of concealing the ugly truth that arms are devised to kill with. If the use of arms can be judged even tolerable it must be because of the soldier's code and the soldier's cause. Hence a nation about to arm itself should confess its sins and renew allegiance to its ideals. The knight took vows to protect the holy sepulchre, "to maintain and defend all ladies, gentlewomen, orphans, widows, women distressed and abandoned,*' or to perfect himself in purity, fidehty and honesty. It will not do to substitute for a code so exacting as that of chivalry, or a cause so clear as that of the crusades, a mere indeterminate vow of patriotism. Loyalty to one's country, unless one understands its policy and helps to mould it, is simply a shirking of the prior obligation to think for oneself.

Mihtary service is at once a necessity, a good and a danger. But it is primarily a necessity. By this I mean that it is justified only as a means to an imperative end. It is not to be undertaken for itself, nor is it Hghtly to be adopted as a means. Nothing short of national safety or some higher design of international justice and order, can make it reasonable to cultivate the art of destruction. But since military service is so justified, as a painful necessity like surgery, capital punishment or self-sacrifice, it is reasonable that it should be done well, and soberly undertaken as a function of the state. In a democracy this means that it should be acknowledged and assumed as an obligation by all citizens. For democracy implies that there shall be neither privilege nor immunity. "All the inhabitants of the state are its defenders by birth," said Scharnhorst. If this could be said of Prussia, it can be said with greater reason of a country Hke our own which proclaims the principle of civic equality.

The scale and the method of modern warfare make universal training not only an appropriate means, but an indispensable means. An untrained nation depending on a small professional army or on a horde of "embattled farmers" and other indignant citizens, presents the same pitiful spectacle as that afforded by the dervishes who fought Kitchener with spears at Omdurman. An armed man attacked with the naked fist, shot and shell opposed by bows and arrows, men trained to use the most improved implements of war resisted by equally brave men who have hitherto handled nothing but a hammer, spade, trowel, tennis-racket, billiard-cue or umbrella — this is not magnificent, or even absurd; it is heart-breaking. Those who make it possible by their stubborn complacency or irrelevant idealism, are in effect as culpable as those who, because they preferred the individual to the group, and counted the souFs culture more important than mere bodily safety, might consent that undrilled children should crowd an inflammable schoolhouse.

The opposition to universal training, like the opposition to more limited forms of preparedness, is due more to ignorance than to principle. Thus our recently appointed Secretary of War confesses that he has changed his ideas as to the sufficiency of our military resources. He is reported to have said that "it is simply a matter of getting information."^ He has discovered that a shght additional compHcation on the Mexican border would make it necessary to call upon 'Hhe entire standing army of the United States." "One cannot," he adds sagely, " consider such facts as that from an inside angle without reahzing that our army would be totally inadequate to handle a real war difficulty ! " The naivete of this confession is astounding. One would have supposed that by putting two and two together, and repeating the operation a few times, Mr. Baker might have reached the same conclusion without being admitted to the "inside." What must be the feeling of those who have mastered the technic of military art, those army chiefs who, as Secretary Baker has also discovered, are not spoiling for war but are simply trained and thoughtful men who feel responsible for a cer-

* From an interview by Fred C. Kelly, published in Harper's Weekly for April 22, 19 16.

tain branch of the national service — ^what must be their feeling as this new scholar publicly recites his alphabet with all the airs of profound insight !

A policy of adequate military preparedness is not, except for those few persons who profess non-resistance, a question of principle, but of prudence and expediency. To be converted to it, it is only necessary to learn by experience, to observe facts and make inferences, and to govern one's present actions by a sane regard for future contingencies. In other words, it is merely a question of being normally intelligent about the hazard of war. Even universal military training is, I believe, dictated by mere prudence, quite apart from the wholesomeness and fairness of having the duty of defense undertaken jointly by all whose interest is at stake.

There is gradually unfolding^ in England a most impressive, and, to all friends of England, a most distressing object-lesson in the failure of the voluntary system. This system creates the very resistance that it has to overcome. Events have proved, it seems to me quite unmistakably, that there is no real choice between compulsory service and voluntary service, but only between compul-

* Written in March, 1916.

sion in advance, as a part of the deliberate policy of the state, and compulsion in the midst of the national crisis. In the latter case it is too late to be fully effective, and is imposed unexpectedly upon those who are by elimination the most unwiUing to serve, and who have been taught to believe that compulsory service is contrary to the political principles under which they live.

Granting universal military duty to be the effectual as well as the democratic way of doing what must be done, it follows that it is reasonable to make a virtue of necessity. And here it is proper to argue the educational benefits of miHtary training. That such benefits do accrue, no one who has had the least experience will deny. Prompt obedience, the economy of time, power to work effectively with all sorts of men, the ignoring of minor vexations and discomforts, self-sufficiency as regards the elementary things of Hfe, physical health and endurance, manual expertness — these are some of the lessons that are learned in the school of war. They are not carried away in note-books but under the skin in nerve and muscle. The greatest lesson of all is the habit of thinking nationally, the feeling that one has a country, and that one owes it something. A man then makes the acquaintance of his country as a whole, and for once, at least, looks it in the face.

Now there are doubtless other ways in which this national-mindedness may be cultivated. Professor Dewey has proposed the centralization of the educational system, and Mr. Walter Lippmann has proposed the government ownership of railways.^ It can be urged against any of these proposals, including that of universal military training, that it implies the existence of that very national-mindedness which it is supposed to promote. There is evidently a circle that has got to be broken somewhere. A general national pohcy, foreign and domestic, for peace and for war, in education and in economic life, will develop rapidly when once the federal authority is an object of loyalty and confidence; and when on its part it serves the people with greater foresight, with a broader grasp of the total situation, and with a more serious sense of responsibility. But this new state of things cannot be certainly achieved by any single act or propaganda. No man can tell where the existing habits are weakest and may most easily be overthrown, or what may appeal most vividly to the imagination of the people. If educational and economic reform

* The New Kepuhlic, for February 19 and April 15, 1916.

can break the circle, by all means let them go forward. Meanwhile the spectacular tragedy of war, and the sudden necessity of thinking poHtically upon the larger international scale, have already done much to arouse us from our separatism and complacency. There is a spreading beHef that if we are to take part in the making of history we must acquire the strength to do it. MiHtary training, or some other exercise to make oneseK fit for national service, is a natural outgrowth of the desire to act in this great crisis when every good thing is in jeopardy. It may well be that this emergency will enable us to find ourselves; and that from marching together, or working together to make the nation strong, we shall get a new sense of comradeship and of partnership that shall in the end revolutionize our culture and our social order.

But it is neither the necessity of miHtary service, nor the virtue that may be made of this necessity, with which I want here more especially to deal. Military service has also its attendant dangers. I urge them not as arguments against it, but as abuses to be avoided. If there is any institution that is an unmixed blessing, I have never heard of it. It is not religion, for example, or conscience, or art, or government. Every political or social policy has its dangers; democracy itself has, perhaps, the most insidious dangers of all. But we do not abandon such policies when we have reason to believe that they are necessary, or are the most hopeful alternatives open to us. We adopt them, and then seek so far as possible to offset the attendant dangers. This we can do all the better for being put on our guard.

So in the case of universal military service I shall summarize its dangers not in order to throw them in the balance against it, but in order to suggest positive measures by which these dangers can be avoided. If as a nation we are to take up arms, or even exercise ourselves in their use, it must be with a certain solemnity. Arms are edged tools; they are not playthings. If we are to acquire their use we must learn to use them safely, and only for a serious purpose. We must take measures to prevent their abuse, and to safeguard the superior interests which they might otherwise injure. Their use must be adjusted to those ends that justify our national existence. Military service should not only be dedicated to the highest end within the range of our present moral vision, but it should be informed with whatever human quality we think is finest, and corrected or offset by whatever measures may effectually protect our liberties and minimize the inevitable sacrifice.

There never was a greater need than now of a comprehensive poHcy. The vivid fact of war and the new historical crisis have already upset our equilibrium — despite every attempt on our part to hold aloof. New national policies are inevitable, and have, in fact, already been inaugurated. It is necessary, therefore, as though we were moving into a new house in a more thickly settled neighborhood, to see to it that there are rooms for all the family, places for our possessions, and shrines for our gods. In particular, how shall we be as strong as the hazard of war requires with the least prejudice to our peaceful pursuits and our constructive humane ends? It is the importance, here and now, of such a stock-taking and reckoning of cost that will justify, I hope, the rehearsal of famiHar truisms.

I. The American army should both be dedicated to the service of democracy, and also be itself an example of democracy. Democracy is on trial, as it has been many times before. Usually the jury has disagreed. The charge has always been the same, namely, that democracy implies a lack of organization which breeds lawlessness, corruption and weakness. Just now it is a question whether a democracy can survive. Can it unite with liberty, equality and fraternity, enough strength to enable it to hold its own among governments which enjoy a greater concentration of power, and which can avail themselves of general habits of subordination and obedience? Can a house be governed by discussion without being divided against itself and suffering the proverbial penalty? The future alone holds the answer. But this much is evident — that unless a democracy can be strong it cannot be said to have succeeded at all. Therefore, whoever devotes himself to democracy must seek ways of making it strong. He who neglects the question of mihtary preparedness fails not only to solve the problem of democracy but even to grasp it. A democratic government must be able to do what other governments do, namely, provide security against attack from abroad, and the necessary mechanism and organization by which the nation may exert its united strength when occasion requires. A democracy which relies for the execution of its policies on the indulgence or accidental interest of other nations, is a confessed failure. If, for example, we wish to defend Belgium against Germany but have to call

Upon France to do it for us; if we avow the Monroe Doctrine but trust that if it comes to blows the Enghsh fleet will help us out; then our government has failed, whatever liberty of speech and thought we may enjoy in our domestic affairs. To prove that a democracy can maintain itself, protect the interests under its charge, and be as good as its word, is then the service which the armed force of a democracy owes to the cause of democracy.

Like all of the agencies of the central government the military organization is in danger of spreading the error that the state is an end in itself. The symbols of war, the flag, martial music, the rhythm of parade, all of these tend to beget an idolatrous worship. Democracy is founded on the principle that the authority of government is justified only by the benefits which accrue to the governed. Democratic patriotism is not a blind and slavish loyalty, but is mixed with a strain of intelligent self-interest and providence. A democracy must not allow its head to be turned by drum-beats and gold braid. The real business of life is still to promote the happiness and well-being of individual men and women. The agencies of war as well as those of peace must be regulated and rigorously judged with reference to this end. The mere emotional effervescence of the war spirit must not be allowed to create "The Great Illusion," or any other illusion by which men are prevented from recognizing where their interest lies. Though the immediate object of military loyalty must be the state, that object must not in a democracy be worshipped by a devotee who asks nothing in return, but rather prized by one who well understands its beneficence.

If the army and navy are not to subvert the democracy for which they act, they must be democratic in their own internal spirit and organization, without loss of discipline.^ This is by no means impossible. It was achieved by the French armies of 1792; and, if we are to trust the reports, has been again achieved by the French armies of to-day. A football team is not less democratic for its team-work or for having a captain. Each individual member of the team feels that he depends on all the rest, and that it is necessary that there should be some one to lead and give commands. He who leads

^The critics of universal service are as a rule silent regarding the objections that can so easily be urged against a professional army. A hired army is neither so representative, nor so responsible, nor so voluntary in its service as a citizen army. There is a very forcible discussion of the matter in F. S, Oliver's Ordeal by Battle, part IV, chap. VII.

and he who is led both play indispensable parts and serve the same end. So in a democratic army the officer and the private are comrades because, each doing something needful, they acknowledge one another's support in the common cause. The officer is not a person who enjoys privileges so much as one whose duties are more exacting and more responsible. He is less distinguished by his trappings than by his long hours. He is more bound than the private, who looks to him rather with gratitude than with envy.

Responsible leadership and prompt concerted obedience are not undemocratic where they are pervaded by an understanding of the game, and the will to play one's part in it. They become undemocratic only when the difference between officer and private coincides with more generally recognized social cleavages. To avoid this it is necessary that officers and men should be recruited from the same social classes, so that superiority of military rank should be identified only with superiority in military skill, or with that native quality of leadership which is independent of breeding or culture. It is important that men of wealth and position should serve in the ranks, and that men who are favored only by their military experience and native fitness should rise from the ranks to command them. To the same end it is important that humihating punishments should be avoided, and the authority of officers confined within clearly recognized bounds, so as to protect the self-respect of privates from the abuse or caprice of authority. In short, a democratic army must owe its discipline to morale and loyalty, rather than to harshness and to fear. It is self-evident that there is most hope of fostering this spirit in an army of citizens conscious both of the equal dignity and of the common service which that role implies.

In his famous essay, "On Liberty," which is still the best specific for paternalism. Mill says that a free people must be "accustomed to transact their own business." He cites the resourcefulness of the French in times of revolution as being due to their military experience and the presence everywhere among the people of men who have been non-commissioned officers, and who have therefore a capacity to lead and to organize a plan of action. He attributes to Americans a like resourcefulness "in every kind of civil business," and contrasts France and America with the bureaucracy in which "all the experience and practical abihty of the nation" has been organized "into a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest." A free people must be a people in which potential leadership is everywhere widely diffused; in which all have some aptitude both to command and to obey. The personnel of the military organization should therefore be in some degree interchangeable. There is an obvious mihtary advantage in this because it creates an inexhaustible reserve of officers. But the deeper reason for it lies in its divorcing the office from the man, and substituting a subordination of position for personal arrogance and abasement. It should serve also to keep alive within the breast of one who has become for the time a colorless unit in the ranks the pecuHar temperament of an individual and the high pretensions of a man. In short, a democracy must avoid a mihtary caste, which it can best do by making the people its own army; and it must avoid an official caste, which it can best do by flexibility of organization, frequent promotion from the ranks, the interpenetration of all social classes in all grades of service and the promotion of a sense of partnership and personal equality between those who command and those who obey.

2. Universal military service is consistent with democracy only in so far as it is popular.

The principal objection to the so-called voluntary system is the fact that when compulsion is at last used, as it inevitably is, it is without the support either of the habits or the judgment of the people. The constitutionality of compulsion is not disputed. Every government must at least hold it in reserve as a course of last resort. In any war with a nation of equal or superior power, it will always be probable that the voluntary system will prove inadequate. The only way of avoiding the ugly method by which after the more willing have first been drained away the more unwilling residuum is then threatened and coerced, is to adopt the policy of universal service from the outset, with open eyes, because of its utiHty and its justice. It is then possible to create habits of mind and of body that are really consistent with national needs.

The success of the poHcy in this country, as in England or any other democracy, must depend on the attitude of the working classes. There is reason to hope that organized labor may be converted to the principle of national service, not only from motives of patriotism, but for its educational and social advantages, and for its possible indirect bearing on economic difficulties through the creation of a better understanding between the working man and his employer. It is also probably inevitable that universal service should lead to the state's assuming on its side a greater responsibility for the welfare of the working classes. In short, a more provident and constructive economic poUcy might well grow out of the more vigorous nationality, and the more vivid sense of co-operation and mutual dependence, that universal miHtary service would stimulate.

3. Whatever system of military service this country may adopt must be suited to our pecuhar institutions and to whatever we account indispensable to our national temperament. It has been argued that any military system is contrary to the genius of America. We are reminded of those who came here to escape military service, and to whom America would not be America were it not for that immunity. Now it is dangerous to identify national life merely with immunity. Men will go anywhere to escape a disagreeable duty. That they should come to America from that motive argues no devotion to American institutions and promises no willingness to assume the responsibilities of citizenship. It is a misfortune that America is reputed to be a land where you can make money easily and do as you please. Those whom this repute brings to us are Hkely to feel abused when they find that here as elsewhere success requires work, law and taxes. Compulsory military service is in principle contrary to no ideal save that of reaping without toil and sacrifice; which is a delusion on which no national life can be founded.

That which is most necessary in order to adapt mihtary training to American Hfe is that men should, as in the Swiss system, be withdrawn only for short periods from civil life. The function of war must always be regarded as subordinate to peaceful pursuits, in the life of the individual as well as in that of the nation. The citizen must be a non-combatant first and a soldier second. He must derive his tastes and standards from his family, economic, poHtical or recreative associations, so as to prevent the development or dominance of a distinct military type. Occasional military training, the attainment of skill in arms and manoeuvres, need no more suppress individuality than do athletic sports. The military uniform need no more efface personality than does the civilian uniform. As a matter of fact, uniformity in unessentials, such as clothes, step, carriage or manual dexterity, is a means by which one may escape attention and therefore be permitted to pursue one's own way in essentials, without scrutiny and censorship. Long hair and a flowing cravat bespeak not that independence which Americans respect, but that ostentation and tenderness to social regard which Americans are inclined to find ridiculous. If there be anything in mihtary form which is contrary to our spirit it is not that unobtrusive and workmanlike uniformity which is important, but those decorations and other concessions to personal vanity which can more easily be dispensed with.

4. It is essential to democracy that the civil authority should be superior to the military authority, and that there should be one law and one moral code for soldiers and for shoemakers. What happened in Zabern in 1913 ought to be intolerable among Americans. The civilian control of our mihtary forces is provided for in our constitutional forms and is heartily seconded by pubHc opinion. We must be content even with a loss of efficiency rather than run the risk of mihtary rule. Policy must at all times be governed by the electorate, and criticism of authority must always be tolerated so long as it is intended as an appeal to the arbitration of public opinion. Even in times of war it is essential to a democracy that the great body of citizens should exercise their political prerogatives. It is not inconsistent with soldierly duty that one should fight so long as a state of war exists, and yet vote for a policy that would terminate the war.

If there be any fear that an American army once organized on a formidable scale might be employed for aggressive purposes by an ambitious or unscrupulous administration, it is always possible that compulsory enlistment should be confined to service at home, or on the borders. By such a provision a man would incur less risk of being ordered to do that which in principle he disapproves. He would not have given himself unconditionally into the keeping of another; but would have adopted the service freely from the imperative ground of national safety. It is impossible to deny, however, that such conditional service might at times defeat the purpose of defense. "The only question of real importance," says Mr. F. S. OHver, "is this: At what place will the sacrifice of life be most effective for the defence of the country? If we can answer that we shall know also where it will be lightest." ^

It has been urged against compulsory service, by Mr. Norman Angell, for example, that it re-

* Ordeal by Battle, p. 403.

quires a man to fight in a war he deems unrighteous, and stops him from criticising it. That any given individual should be free at all times to do as his conscience dictates is somewhat less possible in time of war than in time of peace. But the difference is only one of degree. Authority of any kind, civil or military, implies that individuals shall do under pressure what they would otherwise not do. If a man is unfortunate enough to be a conscientious nihihst or a conscientious polygamist, he will find himself constrained to act contrary to his own best judgment. He may have conscientious scruples against paying his taxes, or against educating his children, or against submitting to vaccination. But the state will penalize his action without respecting his conscience, and if he incites to riot on behalf of his own peculiar ideals he may have to submit to martyrdom. No way has been found nor ever will be found of avoiding this tragedy; it is simply the price which is paid for the benefits of social order. But this tragedy is minimized under Hberal political institutions by permitting individuals at stated times and in stated ways to share in the making of the laws under which they live. Under such institutions there are measures which a man may legally take toward making the law more to his own Hking. But meanwhile he must obey it as it is — ^under protest, if he wishes.